And given that 1963s-more specifically, the ST-19-is produced on a massive scale by Seagull, quality control on 1963s isn’t nearly on the same level as Tissot, Hamilton, Mido or even Seiko, Citizen or Casio. It only beats at 21,600bph, it doesn’t hack (you can backhack it like a 7S26, though), and its tick is louder than more modern calibers. Since it’s essentially powered by a watch movement from the 1940s, the 1963 isn’t exactly on the cutting edge of technological innovation. If you so desired you could brag to your non-watch savvy friends that you have a watch with a (technically) Swiss movement inside of it, but in actuality that’d be like saying the Nostalgia Critic’s ear-bleeding parody of The Wall was made by Pink Floyd.Īlthough the ST-19 is one of the most photogenic movements you can buy for under a grand, it’s not all things to all men. Skip forward about 4 or 5 decades, and Seagull decides to reissue these chronographs with the same movement, resulting in the watch that we all know and love today. Resultantly, the Tianjin watch factory that would become Seagull threw in an extra couple of jewels and called it a day, and about 1,400 original Chinese air force chronographs were issued. Back in the day Venus wanted to fund development of new calibers, so they sordidly sold the tooling and design to Maoist China, who wanted a pilot’s chronograph for their air force.
SEAGULL 1963 CHRONOGRAPH MANUAL
Seagull’s ST-19 movement, which powers the 1963, is essentially a modified variant of the former company’s Calibre 175, a 17-jewel, manual wind, column-wheel chronograph movement that was used in several pilot’s watches from brands like Breitling and Minerva in the 1940s and 50s. Speaking of Switzerland, the movement that powers the 1963 was born from one that came from one of the finest pre-quartz crisis Swiss movement makers: Venus. If you took away the Chinese text and the communisticial red star right above the 21 ZUAN, you’d have yourself something that looked like it came from La-Chaux-De-Fonds in 1947. The fully-polished stainless steel case wears great too at 38mm in diameter with a depth of 14.5mm, a lug width of 18mm, and a lug-to-lug distance of 47mm, it wears conservatively, but not delicately, in the way a bona-fide vintage watch would be. The (unfortunately fake and un-lumed) blued minute, hour and register hands, red chronograph seconds hand, applied gold numerals, sapphire crystal and champagne-colored dial somehow all come together to make something that defies all explanation. Even though Seagull has committed a kindergarten crime by violating the basic principles of the color wheel, they still make one of the most good-looking affordable watches you can buy. Just a cursory glance at the 1963 shows that it's undoubtedly a beautiful, unique watch. And when you dig a little deeper, it’s easy to see why. They’ve been on the wrists of popular watch enthusiasts like Teddy Baldassare, Jody from Just One More Watch, TGV from the Urban Gentry, Marc from Long Island Watch…and *gags* Jory Goodman from the Time Teller. Powered by the only fully mechanical chronograph movement you can get for a relatively inconsiderable price, these idiosyncratic, anachronistic, proudly Chinese timepieces have become a darling of the watch world since they came out last decade.
But out of all the watches you can buy for under $1000, hell, even $500, none top the undiluted bang-for-your-buck value than the one of the mack daddies of cult watches: the Seagull 1963.
SEAGULL 1963 CHRONOGRAPH PRO
There are some watches many feel are essential to any budget collection, or any collection at all the Casio F-91W, the Timex Weekender, the Seiko 5 SNK809, even the Invicta Pro Diver 8926OB are among the many, many watches that many collectors, both green and seasoned, heartily recommend to anyone who wants to graduate from their shitty Armani Exchange watch and get their first purpose-built piece of wrist candy.
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